Sprinkling apparatuses are mainly used in the horticultural field for the surface-covering water supply of plants, but can also be used for dampening other surfaces, such as e.g. sand tennis courts and the like, which are to be kept moist. A conventional sprinkling apparatus is normally set up in fixed manner, connected to a water supply and produces a sprinkling pattern, which determines the shape and size of the sprinkled surface area, as well as the sprinkling density. It is desirable for a variable use of such sprinkling apparatuses to be able to adjust the sprinkling pattern, in order to adapt the sprinkling apparatus to the intended use.
Conventional sprinkling apparatuses have a nozzle arrangement connectable to a liquid supply, particularly a water supply, and having a plurality of nozzles, whereof the nozzle axes determining the delivery direction of a nozzle are directionally variable. A nozzle arrangement is considered to be a monodimensional or multidimensional array of nozzles with substantially fixed, predetermined, relative positions. As a rule, a nozzle is constructed as a single nozzle for the delivery of a water jet, but can also be constructed as a spray nozzle for delivering a spatially more extended spray.
Reciprocating sprinkling apparatuses are already known, which have a water pipe with a plurality of nozzle openings along a top surface of the water pipe pivoting backwards and forwards about its longitudinal axis. The sprinkling width of such a square sprinkler is fixed, whereas the length of the sprinkling surface is adjustable by the pivoting width of the reciprocating movement. The adjustment possibilities of such sprinklers are limited.
In the case of a circular sprinkler known from international patent application WO 95/17262, a circular sprinkling pattern is produced by an arrangement of single nozzles, which are positioned in one or more vertical rows on a sprinkler head pivotable about a vertical axis. The partial jets of the several nozzles are combined shortly following the nozzle outlets into a single jet. The subdivision into several nozzles permits a gradual setting of the flow quantity. For adjusting the range of the uniform jet, all the single nozzles of a vertical row are simultaneously adjusted by the same angle, whilst maintaining the parallel orientation of the nozzles. Circular sprinklers are only suitable to a limited extent for watering linearly defined lawn surfaces, e.g. in the vicinity of path edges or borders. The adjustment possibilities of the known circular sprinkler are also limited to the diameter adjustment of the sprinkling surface.